It had been one month since Ryan Ashworth passed his firearm's proficiency test — the moment Maggi had given him the rare, cold nod of approval. In total, three grueling months had passed since he first arrived at the hidden training facility deep in the forests of Andhra Pradesh. Two months were consumed by brutal firearms and tactical weapon training under Maggi's relentless gaze, and one month had been swallowed by ruthless survival tests in the wilderness. His body bore the cuts, bruises, and fading scars of every hardship, but mentally, Ryan knew the true trial was only just beginning.
Maggi didn't give him a day to recover.
At dawn, as the first weak light crept through the mist-shrouded trees, she summoned him to the makeshift training ground. Dressed in her usual combat attire, her emerald green eyes glinted sharply under the morning haze, her striking red hair tied back in a severe braid. She stood as a figure carved from stone — cold, indifferent, and utterly unreadable.
"Starting today, we move into the next phase," Maggi said without preamble, her voice clipped and emotionless. "Mental strength and torture resistance."
Ryan stood silent, shoulders squared, bracing for whatever hell she would unleash.
Maggi's gaze drilled into him, as though weighing his very soul." You will undergo sleep deprivation," she said. "Interrogation stress drills. Psychological attacks. Hunger, thirst, isolation... everything that breaks a man from the inside. You will not know when it ends. You will not be given mercy. Not even once."
She stepped closer, her presence suffocating. "If you collapse, you stand back up. you scream, you fail. you lose yourself, you are no better than a corpse."
Her words were not a threat — they were a fact, as certain as the rising sun.
"Adapt. Or die," Maggi said simply.
Without waiting for acknowledgment, she turned on her heel and walked away, her steps as sharp as gunfire. Ryan followed, his mind already steel-forging itself for what lay ahead.
The first test was brutal in its simplicity: sleep deprivation.
For forty-eight straight hours, Ryan was forbidden to sleep. He had to maintain constant alertness, guard his post, and simulate holding a sniper position under duress. Every hour, Maggi would appear without warning, barking new orders — running drills, enforcing exercises, forcing him to remain on his feet. When his knees buckled from exhaustion, she gave no sympathy. Only a hard glare that told him to get up — or be left behind.
The second day blurred into the third, and Ryan's mind began playing tricks on him. He saw phantom movements in the trees, heard whispers that weren't there. Every nerve in his body screamed for rest, but he gritted his teeth and endured. Somewhere deep inside, his survival instinct — the one Maggi had been mercilessly sharpening for months — roared louder than his fatigue.
Late on the third night, as the mist thickened and the cold seeped into his bones, Ryan felt something — or someone — watching him.The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He scanned the darkness with bloodshot eyes, hand tightening around the rifle slung across his chest.
He immediately thought of Maggi.
A memory surfaced: one brutal afternoon, when he had failed to complete his daily firing quota. Maggi hadn't yelled. She hadn't punished him immediately. No — the next day, she simply doubled the firing rounds without warning, her cold voice cutting like ice."If you think you can escape consequences," she had said back then, "you don't belong here."
Remembering that, Ryan tightened his grip on the rifle. He didn't relax. He didn't falter. Even if it was Maggi watching him now — even if it was just another test — he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing weakness.
The next phase hit even harder.
The simulated interrogations began.
Before every interrogation session, without warning, a drug was administered into his system — a powerful serum designed to disorient the mind, amplify fear, and make false suggestions feel real. At first, it was terrifying. Within minutes of each injection, reality blurred. His heart raced. His mind twisted under the drug's influence. The fake scenarios constructed by the instructors seemed terrifyingly real — betrayals, abandonment, death, guilt.
He believed the lies.He felt the betrayals.His hands shook; his breathing turned ragged.
The first few sessions nearly broke him.
But somewhere inside, Ryan began to fight back. Bit by bit, he recognized the patterns. He realized that while the drug tried to warp his mind, his core instincts — hardened by months of pain and loss — refused to bend.
He clung to cold logic, to memories of those he loved, to the fierce, silent vow he had made:I will not break.
Every session tested him brutally. Sleep-deprived and mentally battered, Ryan endured hours of blinding lights, physical discomfort, verbal attacks, and psychological torment. The trainers pushed him to his limits, inventing crueler scenarios each day.
Sometimes, they simulated betrayal from Jane Blackwood herself, whispering lies that she had abandoned him, left him to die. Other times, they conjured hallucinations of Hazel Hargrove's last moments, twisting them into knives of guilt.
But Ryan learned to separate the real from the fake. Painfully. Brutally. Unforgivingly.
Day after day, week after week, the torture continued.
Maggi didn't utter words of encouragement. No smiles. No soft glances. Only the occasional, cold nod when Ryan passed a particularly vicious session without breaking — a rare, precious recognition that felt heavier than any spoken praise.
At night, when Ryan collapsed onto his bunk inside his tent, sleep dragged him into nightmares where he kept reliving the interrogations, the isolation, the endless pressure. But each morning, he woke up, stitched his mind back together, and walked out to face another day of hell.
Because deep down, he had already made a silent vow — not to Maggi, not even to himself — but to the ones he had lost, and to the ones he still wanted to protect. He would survive this. He had to survive this.
And as the days dragged on, the Ryan Ashworth that first walked into this camp — uncertain, broken, and scarred — was being slowly reforged into something stronger, harder, and more unbreakable than even Maggi had anticipated.